Pope Is Time’s Man of the Year

Pope John Paul II is Time magazine’s 1994 Man of the Year.

“In a year when so many people lamented the decline in moral values or made excuses for bad behavior, Pope John Paul II forcefully set forth his vision of the good life and urged the world to follow it,” Time writes in its Dec. 26 issue.

But the magazine also notes that the Pope’s pronouncements are not universally acclaimed--for example, critics see the Catholic Church’s refusal to endorse condom use as dangerous and irresponsible in this era of AIDS.

“For such rectitude or recklessness as his detractors would have it, he is Time magazine’s 1994 Man of the Year,” the magazine says.

As evidence of the pontiff’s influence, Time notes his international best seller, “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”; his extensive travels, curbed of late by ill health, and his success at the U.N.’s International Conference on Population and Development, where his emissaries defeated a U.S.-backed proposition that he argued would encourage abortion.